But out there, over the city, in the distance a dark patch obscured the stars. We watched it breathless. A dark patch which soon took shape. A cloud! A black cloud--unnatural of aspect somehow--a rolling, low-lying black cloud. Growing larger; spreading out side-wise; sweeping toward the city on a wind which had not reached us. _"Jac! Jac dear! Danger! Death to all the city!"_ Elza's words were still beating in my brain. Soundless words of terror and warning! _"Death, Jac! Death to all the city! The black cloud of death!"_ CHAPTER XXVII _Tarrano the Man_ "Wake up, Lady Elza." A silence. His hand touched her white shoulder. "Wake up, Lady Elza. It is I--Tarrano." Elza opened her eyes, struggling to confused wakefulness. The white walls of her sleeping room in Tarrano's palace of the City of Ice were stained with the dim red radiance of her night light. She opened her eyes to meet Tarrano's inscrutable face as he bent over her couch; became conscious of his low, insistent, "Wake up, Lady Elza;" and his fingers half caressing the filmy scarf that covered her shoulders. Terror flooded Elza; that time she had always feared, had come. Yet she had the presence of mind to smile, drawing away from him and sitting up, with the fur bed-covering pulled to her chin. "Tarrano? Why--" He straightened, and into his expression came apology. "I frightened you, Lady Elza? I'm sorry. I would not do that for all the worlds." Her terror receded. The old Tarrano over whom she still held sway. She summoned a look of haughty questioning. "You are bold, Tarrano--" His gesture was deprecating; he seated himself on the edge of her couch. She saw now that he was fully dressed and armed with a belt of many instruments. At this time Elza had been in the City of Ice for a considerable period. Irksome, worried days of semi-imprisonment; and through them, Tarrano's attitude toward her was unchanged. She saw little of him; he seemed very busy, though to what end, and what his activities, she could not learn. Within the palace, half as guard, half as maid-servant, Tara was generally Elza's only companion. And then, one evening when Tara's smouldering jealousy broke forth in Tarrano's presence and Elza uttered an involuntary cry of fear, Tara was summarily removed. Elza was left practically alone; until at length came this night when invading the privacy of her sleeping room, Tarrano awakened her. He sat now upon the edge of her couch. "I have a confession to make to you, Lady Elza." He smiled slightly. "As you know, there is no one else in our habitable universe to whom I would speak thus frankly." "I am honored, Tarrano. But here, at this hour of sleep--" He waved away the words. "I have asked your pardon for that. My confession--as once before, Lady Elza, I come to you most humbly, confessing that my affairs are not going as I would like. You do not know, of course, that Mars--"